Samoa climate change finance stakeholders discuss way forward

Apia, Samoa– Climate change financing stakeholders of Samoa converge today in Apia for a week-long series of activities geared towards knowledge-sharing and collective formulation of solutions to challenges presently experienced in this particular field of development work.

The series of meetings from 8-11 May 2017 will engage key stakeholders from national government, development partners, regional technical agencies, and representatives of civil society including the private sector.

A Climate Finance Forum tomorrow (9 May) will set out the current approach Samoa is taking with respect to climate change finance in Samoa. It will also bring together key stakeholders from the various government ministries, civil society and the private sector.

The Samoa Government has significantly progressed with the development of its national climate change policies, joint national action plans, integrating climate change and disaster risks into sector policies, and with the establishment of national climate change coordination and disaster risk mechanisms.

Similar to challenges faced by all other Pacific countries, Samoa’s challenges persist in terms of human capacity constraints in central climate change, finance and planning agencies to develop and manage multi-sectorial climate change projects or programmes and to access global climate change finance.

Such challenges are compounded by limited engagement between central climate change, finance, planning and key sector ministries due to fragile or lack of institutional arrangements and enabling policies, which results in fragmented approaches.

Part of this week’s meeting agenda is to map out strategies to address persistent issues faced by Samoa. On 10-11 May, participants will be involved in project planning, with some technical guidance by the regional climate finance projects – USAID Climate Ready, USAID/SPC Institutional Strengthening in Pacific Island Countries to Adapt to Climate Change (ISACC) and DFAT/GIZ Climate Change Finance Readiness for the Pacific (CFRP).

USAID/SPC ISACC is a multi-country project between the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Pacific Community (SPC) for implementation between 2016 and September 2020 by the SPC, Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS). Focus areas include climate change adaptation, climate finance, policy strengthening/development and capacity building/training.

The DFAT/GIZ CFRP is also a multi-country project funded by the Australian Government through the Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). It focuses on strengthening the capacities of five Pacific Island countries including Samoa to access climate change finance.

USAID Climate Ready is a multi-country project working with Pacific Island countries and other stakeholders to prioritise areas of support that align with their climate and disaster resilience plans and goals. Climate Ready works in collaboration with the USAID/SPC ISACC, DFAT/GIZ CRFP, SPREP and other USAID programming in the region. Focus areas include climate change adaptation policy and mainstreaming, improving access to climate financing and strengthened public and private sector capacity to implement climate change adaptation projects.

From these three regional projects, Samoa is one of the recipient countries that will benefit from the support to complement and add value to the existing programmes implemented by the Government. These regional projects have varied implementation costs and timelines depending on each project, however, it is estimated that the total cost of all three projects is around US$30 million.

The Samoa Climate Finance Forum and group consultations will be held at the Tanoa Tusitala Hotel.

For more information, please contact Ledua Vakaloloma on Leduav@forumsec.org